


color in your cheeks.

by ohyellowbird



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Credence is an adult, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, mentions of abuse, the next chapter will be rated Explicit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-26
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-09-02 09:47:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8662756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohyellowbird/pseuds/ohyellowbird
Summary: “Excuse me--if you have a moment. Son.”A tall, withering, husk of a boy falls away from the departing crowd, and in the long moment it takes to receive his eyes and his words, Percival is certain that he has found Credence Barebone.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i have read so many incredible gravebone fics and wanted to get a feel for them for myself. so here is a tidbit about how credence and graves met and established the relationship that you see grindelwald taking advantage of in the film.

 

 

“Excuse me--if you have a moment. _Son_.”

 

A tall, withering, husk of a boy falls away from the departing crowd, and in the long moment it takes to receive his eyes and his words, Percival is certain that he has found Credence Barebone. 

 

“Yes, sir?” he inquires meekly, peering upwards with a hunted sort of look.

 

Percival doesn’t remember him looking quite so explicitly terrified in the inky memory of a dream provided to him. It sets him off-balance, but he manages a kind smile and beckons the boy. “I’d like to hear more about you cause, if you have the time.”

 

Credence just stares and, after a beat, exhales loudly. “Oh, um. Of course.” He makes to separate a pamphlet away from the stack but they’ve begun to bleed, wet from a steady drizzle. As are his hands and clothes, his entire frame quavering in place.

 

He works to find a suitable flyer at least, but Percival stops him after another moment with a heavy hand around his shoulder, notes the electric reaction that such a simple touch invokes. “That’s alright, though I am eager to learn more. Will you be in the square tomorrow?”

 

Credence has sunk low under Percival’s gesture, but nods in an almost feverish manner, “Yes, sir. We’re here every Tuesday and Wednesday. Some Thursdays too, depending.”

 

“Wonderful,” Percival says, “Have a good evening--I didn’t catch your name.”

 

There’s a short pause and then a skittering of sound that sounds little like anything. “It’s Credence.”

 

“Well It’s a pleasure to meet you, Credence. My name is Percival Graves. Don’t forget to save a pamphlet for me tomorrow.” And with a gentle squeeze of his shoulder, their first encounter ends.

 

 

 

The next day finds Credence in the same clothes with the same crowd, and carrying the same air of shrunken anticipation; it reminds Percival of an abused dog. He greets Credence after the conclusion of his mother’s ravings with the same genial clap against his shoulder and it garners the very same reaction. 

 

The details of Grindelwald’s assignment were vague, but the whole of it was paramount and while Percival would never doubt his plans, he can’t say that he’s happy to be tasked with interrogating a troubled boy.

 

They drift away from the others and Credence withdraws reading material from beneath his buttoned shirt, turns a sheepish sorry smile on Percival. “I didn’t want them to get wet,” and Percival’s answering grin is undesigned. He tucks the papers away into his briefcase and calls Credence to a concrete divider where they can sit a minute. 

 

“Now tell me, what makes you think that there are witches in New York?”

 

 

 

They meet almost daily under the pretense of his enlightenment, Credence wilted close like a straining flower and parroting back the lunacy of his mother’s beliefs. Percival keeps a hand on a knee or against the plane of a shoulder blade, well aware of the difference it makes in the boy’s speech and behavior, just to be touched. They are calculated gestures at first, but quickly become second nature, Percival more at ease when there’s a spark of life to Credence as he talks, when his lips flicker every so often into a smile. 

 

It’s a slow-moving affair. Some days Credence is open and malleable and others he seems to have disappeared within himself, hardly capable of simple conversation. It’s hard not to wonder what causes such shifts.

 

 

 

The breakthrough arrives when Credence is late one stormy afternoon. He slips into the quiet cafe bleeding apologies and folding into Percival’s arms in a hug that’s become routine. The muscles clutching his spine tremble and when he draws back, it’s clear that something’s happened. Percival is shaken by his condition, releases the boy with great reluctance.

 

“Come sit down,” he instructs evenly and guides them both towards a quiet spot away from the window with a hand warm around the back of his neck.

 

Credence sits with both hands beneath the table, hazarding only the barest of glances, and Percival watches him with a crease between his eyes. He orders two coffees and a scone from a circling waitress before crossing the short table with both arms. 

 

“Let me see,” he says gently, his palms turned upwards, and Credence makes a small noise like someone stepping on a twig.. There is tense silence then, and a hasty unspoken charm to give this moment over to privacy. But with huge, glassy eyes, he eventually slides both hands up onto the table, settles them into the shapes made by Percival’s own.

 

What is revealed is stomach-churning. The entire expanse of them is little more than crusted blood and angry welts. It’s a wonder he can even bend the fingers, though it is done certainly with unimaginable pain. Percival would think it a hex if he didn’t know better, has rarely seen worse violence from a No-Maj aside from the war.

 

His eyes sting when he peels them away from the horrors of Credence’s hands, but his voice is steel, “Credence, who did this to you?”

 

“Mr. Graves, please....”

 

“I asked you a question,” he breathes, “tell me who hurt you,” but Credence goes silent and still, big tears spilling down his cheeks as he begins to shake. He wants his hands back, he pulls, but Percival is stronger by much. Long fingers curl instinctively to keep them and Credence yelps. From there it is pure instinct. Simple wandless magic.

 

The crushed space between their hands warms and slowly, Credence settles, looks down with sudden wonder at the tabletop and back at Percival in turns. It takes only a minute or two, and Percival drinks in the dawn of realization when their hands part.

 

Credence breathes out a knotted string of air, lifting his unmarred hands away for inspection, flexing his fingers. It’s something to behold, but Percival is wary of the look that will be in those dark, sad eyes when they are on him again.

 

It isn’t a response he’d prepared for.

 

In quick succession, Credence balls his hands into tight fists, lowers them back onto his lap, lifts his face to Percival again, and dissolves into hysterical sobs.

 

 

 

After twelve days and one act of mercy, Percival knows everything. 

 

Healed through touch, Credence is a flash flood of secret-telling. He spills about his background, about his real mother, that he could never hate witches because she was one. And he talks about his new mother too, about the beatings and about the many unwanted children she’s collected to bring her rabid beliefs to the people.

 

Percival listens to it all with the toe of his boot nudged against Credence’s ankle, completely torn in his feelings. On the one hand, this is a huge step in finding the Obscurial; Grindelwald will be quite pleased with the development. It’s confirmation of his vision and it’s a way forward. But on the other, Percival is gutted by the revelations. And what bothers him most isn’t the stories of neglect and abuse, but the tone of Credence’s voice as he recounts them, the heavy guilt that they are soaked in.

 

Once the confessions give way to silence, Percival is quick with his reassurance, stands and gathers Credence’s bent frame up into his arms, keeps him there until he melts into the embrace.

 

“I’m going to help you,” Percival whispers, Credence’s breath hot against his collar. “You’re a special boy, Credence, and I can teach you.”

 

Credence breaks with a dry sob and Percival pulls back, curves a broad hand around the sharp lines of his cheek, worries the bone of it with his thumb. “I have a trip planned,” he gentles, clearing away a gathering of tears, “I’ll be in Europe all next week, but as soon as I return we will begin. Is that alright with you?”

 

He suddenly wishes to postpone the trip, rationalizes that his resources would be better used here, with Credence. The trust they’ve sown is fragile, to be snapped by a cruel word from his mother. And if she takes to him with the belt again…

 

“Yes,” Credence says, breaking Percival away from his thoughts, “Thank you, Mr. Graves. I’ve been so--” but he never finishes the sentence, just turns his face into the shell of Percival’s palm and sighs. Percival reels him back in and presses foolish lips to his temple, looses a litany of words against his hairline.

 

“You’re okay, you’re safe,” he says, and wants so badly to believe it.

**Author's Note:**

> in the beginning of fantastic beasts, graves tells MACUSA that he didn't see anything fishy in europe when he was there. so i imagine that he went on that trip to meet with grindelwald and his followers and that grindelwald came back to the US in his place.


End file.
